Remember When
by Arii-hime
Summary: For CC-Mikan and Natsume can't sleep, and a night of insomnia proves to be a night of "remember when"'s. Rated T, just in case.


_**Yayy! Guess what? Remember When won second place in the Chu Challenge contest! Thanks for voting me second place! Woo-hoo! :D**_

_This is an entry for CC (Chu Challenge) contest. If you want to participate, go to Chu-heart147's profile. The contest ends on May 7th, and winners will be announced on May 11th. The winners will be announced at Chu-heart147's profile...uh, I think I got it all. Did I?_

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Gakuen Alice. There. Happy? Disclaimed.

* * *

_Remember When_

It was late at midnight when Natsume heard a tapping at the front door, barely audible.

Not that it had disturbed him. He hadn't even been asleep. More like he had been awake, sitting at his desk, staring at a blank piece of paper he had set before himself. He just couldn't find any reason, nor will, to get to sleep. It had been like that for weeks now, but he never told his family about it.

He just stayed awake, restless and bored. He had been doing that just now. That was three hours before he had heard the knock.

Quickly getting to his feet so he wouldn't wake his mother, father or sister up, he ran down the stairs and quietly opened the door.

"Natsume, I can't sleep," a low, familiar voice said.

He found himself staring at his girlfriend, Mikan Sakura. She was still in her pajamas and barefooted, with a pillow tucked under one arm, and her eyes were half closed with a lazy look in them. She looked every bit like she should be asleep, yet she was fidgeting and looked tense.

"Oi. Why did you have to come here?"

She blinked as if he hadn't spoken. "I can't sleep," she repeated.

He sighed, then opened the door wider. "Fine, come in," he said grudgingly. "And be quick about it."

She stepped in gratefully.

Natsume plopped down on the couch. "What do you want?" he finally asked.

"I was lonely because I couldn't sleep." She idly twirled a lock of her brunette hair around her finger. "It's been like that for weeks now but this night felt the worst." She leaned forward like a news reporter. "A bad case of insomnia." Then she sat back. "So I came here."

"Insomnia, huh...?" Natsume said, distracted. He was thinking of something else...

Then he stood up. "My parents might hear us down here. Let's go upstairs to my room."

"What are we gonna do?"

"I don't know. Anything."

"Then I have an idea."

"What?"

"Let's tell some stories."

* * *

Mikan sat down on Natsume's bed. "Sit right here," she said, patting the spot next to her eagerly. Reluctantly Natsume obeyed. "Let's start with the story of how we first met."

"I thought we were telling stories, not reminiscing on our childhood."

"This is a story. A really good one."

* * *

**_Five_**

_For the past few days there had been this girl next door, Natsume noticed. The house that had once been vacant now held these two brunettes and a light-haired man. He had no idea who they were, but his mother, Kaoru, went over there frequently and came back beaming._

_"Oh, Kaichai, you are going to love Yuka," she gushed. "She is so sweet---and guess what? She has a daughter, around Natsume's age! I think her name is Mikan or something, but baby, she looks just like her mother. An exact replica! We should go over there and introduce ourselves properly. It's a great idea!"_

_"Now, now, Kaoru," his father had said, trying to calm her down. "We'll see what we can do."_

_Of course they ended up there five minutes later._

_His mother could do things like that. When she wanted something, it happened._

_Little five-year-old Natsume shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and stared at the sky as his mother pressed the doorbell. He wasn't sure about this. And the last person he wanted to be friends with was a girl._

_But he had to admit it might be nice, because he never really made friends at school and baby Aoi, his little sister who was about six months old, was too young to play with. So someone who lived close would be good._

_His thoughts were interrupted when the door opened and a pretty woman with brown hair down to her shoulders stood in the doorway. She looked at Kaoru and smiled._  
_"Kao!" she exclaimed, giving her a hug. Then she eyed Natsume. "So this is Natsume?" She bent down so that she was eye level with him. "Why, hello! I have a daughter about your age. I'm sure you both will be great friends."_

_Natsume grunted and looked away._

_"He's incredibly shy," Kaoru explained._

_"Oh, that's all right." Yuka smiled. "Mikan won't bite."_

_Then a shout broke out from inside the house. "Mommy!" the voice screamed. "Where are my animal crackers?"_

_"One minute, Mikan!" Yuka called. "She's quite the demander," she said with a smile. "Why don't you come inside?" Then she disappeared._

_The Hyuuga family stepped inside. Instantly Kaoru and Kaichai followed Yuka to do their...grown up talks and stuff. Natsume stayed where he stood, staring at the living room._

_The manor window, off to the side, was open, and the curtains were blowing gently in the breeze. A brown leather couch sat in front of a big wide-screen TV that was pushed against the wall. A glass coffee table sat in front of the couch..._

_...and underneath it was the girl with brunette hair._

_Natsume froze like a statue. She was humming a familiar tune that Natsume identified as a lullaby to herself, while scribbling on white paper with crayons. Her round, cherubic face had pink cheeks and a cute smile, and every few minutes she would reach over and dig inside her box of animal crackers, munching quietly._

_Suddenly she looked up quickly, and Natsume nearly jumped. Her face and mood quickly turned suspicious, and she rolled slowly out from under the coffee table._

_Natsume swallowed thickly. He had never been nervous before, but this girl was...weird._

_"Why were you under the coffee table?"_

_Her response surprised him. " 'Cause it's fun."_

_Her eyes looked dark. She reached behind herself and picked up a drawing of what looked like a rose. "What does this look like to you?" she demanded._

_Natsume blinked. "What is this? A therapy test?"_

_"What's therapy?"_

_"Never mind." Was this girl an idiot? Or was this natural?_

_"You never answered the question." The girl pointed a chubby finger in his face like she was pointing out a criminal to the police._

_Natsume rolled his eyes but answered politely, "Well, it looks like a rose, I guess."_

_And in that instant her face changed. She smiled an adorable smile and giggled. "Thanks! I just wanted to know. I'm Mikan Sakura!" She stuck her hand out and grabbed Natsume's, shaking it vigorously. "Want some animal crackers?"_

_Maybe the girl next door wasn't so bad after all.

* * *

_

"You were such a loudmouth when you were little," Natsume said. Now they were stretched out on the bed.

"I so was not. You were such an old man."

"Shut up. Now it's my turn."

"What?"

"Remember when we had to do that project in school together? And we failed it. Because of you."

"Oh yeah. But that so wasn't my fault. It was yours. All yours."

* * *

**_Ten_**

_The classical baby project._

_It had to be given at some time._

_Now was their time._

_The small plastic baby was dropped in front of them with a hard thud._

_"Huh?" Mikan asked, confused. "I'm too old to play with toys. I'm ten, for Christ's sake."_

_"It's for the project, dumbass." The teacher heard Natsume and wrote his name on the blackboard._

_"No swearing, Natsume!" the old female teacher scolded._

_Natsume waited until the teacher turned around; then he muttered under his breath, "Fucking hag."_

_Mikan giggled._

_"Anyways," the teacher started again, "we're going to be doing a project. To test your love and capability to handle a child." There she went again. That old hippie of a literature teacher, always spouting junk about love and peace and the whole shebang. It was enough to make even Elmo puke._

_Kokoroyomi, one of their goofy friends, raised his hand. "But we're only ten!" he stated._

_"This is knowledge for later."_

_"But none of us will ever have babies," Mikan said, "unless they're prostitutes or sluts or something. Who's ever heard of people doing it at ten?"_

_The teacher glared at Mikan, and wrote her name on the board under Natsume's. Then she pronounced the topic over and done with.

* * *

_

_"That teacher is a fag," Natsume said as they sat on Mikan's front lawn after school that day._

_"But Natsume, only men can be fags. Like you."_

_Natsume glared at her. "Shut up."_

_"No, I didn't mean you. I meant, in general, boys like you."_

_"Whatever." Natsume looked away._

_Mikan tossed the baby doll up and down in her arms. "Stop before you kill it."_

_"It was never alive in the first place. This a retarded project."_

_"Then how about we ditch it?"_

_That day the baby doll was left on the front lawn.

* * *

_

_"Natsume! NATSUME! We have a problem!"_

_Natsume turned around from kicking a soccer ball at the playground the following Saturday. "What now, Polka?"_

_"You'd better shut it." Mikan held out the baby doll. Or, at least, its remains._

_"Wow. What the hell happened to it?"_

_"The Umatsu's puppy, Natsume. That's what happened to it!" She held the dirty, missing-an-arm-and-possibly-housing-the-bubonic-plague doll by its big toe. "We killed the baby and now we're gonna get a failing grade!"_

_"So?"_

_"SO? SO? What the SO is, Natsume, is that my grade will drop from a D minus to a freaking Z! THAT'S the 'SO' of this situation!"_

_People were looking at the duo strangely as they passed. Well it was expected. If you saw two ten-year-olds arguing, one balancing a soccer ball under his foot and the other holding a dirty wad of trash, and you heard the words "killed", "baby", "failing", and "situation", wouldn't you stare too?_

_"We'll just tell her what happened."_

_"If it's the last thing I do! Did you happen to forget to take your medicine this morning?" Mikan stared at him fixatedly._

_"God, relax, Polka."_

_"Oh, I will chillax. I will chillax when you tell me how we're going to get out of this!" Mikan crossed her arms, waiting._

_"Easy." Natsume lowered his voice. "When the fag bag of a teacher asks we're going to say that we were spending so much time with it and loving it so much that we thought the dog would like it. And...thus the result."_

_Mikan's eyes lit up. "You're so right." Then she paused. "But. I don't have a dog."_

_"Not like that hag'll know unless she stalks us or something."_

_A beat-up Jeep drove past them but they didn't notice.

* * *

_

_The next Monday the teacher asked for the results._

_Mikan geared up to say a mouthful. "See, we were loving and caring for it so much---"_

_"---and we never let it out of our sight," Natsume added._

_"We thought the doll might like our puppy," Mikan said. "But the dog killed it instead."_

_"Ah, yes," the teacher smiled an icy smile. "The puppy that you never had got it. I understand."

* * *

_

"I nearly died when she said that. We got an F anyways," Mikan said.

"That whole thing was your fault."

"NO! You see, there you go again. If you carefully recalled the events you'd recognize it was YOUR fault!"

"Whatever, Polka."

Mikan's tone suddenly turned serious. "Now it's my turn."

"What're you gonna nostaligize about now? The time when the school was nearly rampaged by a bunch of crazy drunk picketers?"

"NO. And anyways, that was your fault, too. You taunted them the whole way."

"But you're the one who held the door open for them."

"Whatever!" Mikan turned serious. "Remember our first kiss?"

Both were silent as they relived the memory.

* * *

_**Fourteen**_

_"Natsu-chan! Oh, Naaaatsuuuuuuuuu!"_

_Mikan kicked the bedroom door down and strolled in._

_"It's called, knock, Polka."_

_"And hello to you too, Natsu-watsu." Mikan smiled a big cheesy smile._

_Natsume was about to make a smart aleck response when he noticed her arm, which was big, puffy and swollen. "Hey, Polka, what happened to your arm?"_

_"Oh, this?" She pointed to her arm with her good hand. " 'T's nothin'." She smiled wider._

_Natsume felt a pang somewhere around his heart. There she went again, always smiling no matter what. Because her arm looked really bad. In addition to being puffy and swollen, there were purple blotches in some places. It was probably giving her hell._

_"Don't 'it's nothing' me, Polka," he said, standing up. "What happened?"_

_Mikan sighed a dramatic sigh. "Well, if you insist. I got in a fight with some boys on the way home 'cause they were checking me out. This arm just happens to be my blocking arm, and they punched pretty hard." Mikan frowned. "Also it may have something to do with the fact that I tripped over a rock and landed on my arm on the way."_

_"Oh my god." This was bad. Natsume almost never said that. "Please tell me you kicked their asses. Please."_

_"Of course I did!" Mikan defensively put her one hand on her hip. "No need to throw a hissy fit and go beat them up; you've been doing it for years and I can take care of myself, little man..."_

_"Little my ass, I'm fucking fourteen dammit. I'll kick them in their balls until they have to use a damn wheelchair---"_

_"Ummm. Natsume. Like. Can you stop with the violent speak. I know this is your heart's way of showing concern, but---"_

_"For the love of God." Natsume rolled his eyes. "Let me see that. I'll get an ice-pack."_

_Ten really short minutes I don't feel like describing later..._

_"Ahhh!" Mikan sighed contentedly. "Thanks, Natsu-chan. That feels a whole lot better." She turned around. "Hey, Natsu---?"_

_"Hold up." He was striking a match against the box of matches._

_"Natsume, what the hell are you doing?"_

_"Burning these love notes I found in your pocket."_

_"Wait, what---" And the papers went up in flames._

_"You burned it!" Mikan shrieked. She ran over to the desk._

_"There are more than one 'it's." That'll teach any other guys to flirt or hurt her again._

_Mikan sighed. It was totally obvious that he didn't know that those were addressed to him from her._

_"Lameeee." Mikan stuck her tongue out at him. "Nice to know you care, jerk."_

_"Whatever."_

_Mikan smiled. "Like. Really. You're so lame. Like. Fruity-lame."_

_"Fruity, huh?"_

_"Yep." She jabbed a finger at his chest with her good arm. "Fruity-fruit-fruit. Like strawberry fruity." Speaking of which, Mikan licked her lips. She could use some right now, to soothe her arm, which was still throbbing._

_Strawberries..._

_And that's when Natsume leaned down and placed a soft kiss on her lips._

_Mikan turned fire-red when he backed away finally. He licked his lips._

_"Strawberry much?"

* * *

_

Natsume chuckled at the memory. He heard a soft moan and turned over. Mikan was fast asleep, smiling in her dreams.

He gave that rare smile of his and then, he, too, had a good sleep that he hadn't had in a long time.

* * *

"Hey! What happened to yesterday?"

"What?"

"You fell asleep on me!"

"Polka, I think you've got it backwards."

**Remember**

"So I fell asleep."

"Yup."

"When?"

"At the best part, retard."

**When**

---_The End_---

* * *

_WHOA! I wrote this in one day! I PWN! YAY!_

_...Okay, that was a lie. I wrote a teeny bit of this before. :(_

_I like, rushed this, that's why there's only three age times, cuz I faaaaaaaaail. And I made them super long. Didn't wanna go over the character limit._

_But. Pretty good. No?_

_Now...about that review...couldya do me a little favor and review for me? Cuz I wanna know what you think. So yeah. :)_

_Thanks for reading._

_~Ariisha-chan_


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